“There’s something viscerally personal about the handwriting of musical greats,” writes David Griner in Adweek, “whether it’s their feverishly scribbled drafts of lyrics or their introspective letters to peers and loved ones.”

Griner explains that the handwritings of Kurt Cobain, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, John Lennon and Serge Gainsbourg have been turned into fonts, designed for personal use only.

According to French designers Nicolas Damiens and Julien Sens, now working at JWT in New York, the duo launched the SongwritersFonts project to inspire the next generation of songwriters, thinking writing in the style of the masters would inspire new levels of creativity and imagination.

The project caught on a little too well it seems, and the designers recently announced that they had to shut down their site after being contacted by intellectual property rights owners from the estates of the artists.

While the fonts are no longer available to download, they are still beautiful to look at. And who knows … maybe they’ll somehow work through the legal issues and become available again. Until then, enjoy this beautiful look at the handwriting of some musical legends.